The Long Journey Home: Project Lylat
by MrAleuMcBalto
Summary: First crossover story. Four American recruits of IASA have been tasked with bringing the Star Fox team back to the Lylat system. In doing so, however, they get lost in a strange star system. Now they must find a way to get back on course as well as put a stop to a malicious parasite that wishes nothing more than to destroy the galaxy.
1. Prologue

It has been three months since the crew of the Daedalus-7 arrived back on Earth. Their original plan was to travel to Alpha Centauri and back in humanity's first jump-capable ship as a means to demonstrate this new technology, but fate had other plans. What followed was a long trek through the stars as the crew attempted to make it back to Earth in one piece, interacting with various alien species, both hostile and friendly, and bringing home alien artifacts as souvenirs along the way. Needless to say, their mission was a success, albeit in a vastly different way than they originally envisioned it.

And now, well, you know what they say, where one story ends another begins. Since the completion of Project Daedalus, IASA (the International Aeronautic & Space Administration) hired 4 young recruits to do dull maintenance work, at first at least. After all, it's unrealistic to expect excitement on your first day on the job, right? But today would be different. Today would be the day that these young hopefuls would get their first real mission. Little did they know just how many parallels there would be between this mission and the one from three months ago.


	2. Chapter 1: Wakey Wakey

Our story begins with one of the new recruits, Benjamin Martin, though most people just called him Ben. While the other three recruits (Jacob Lewis, Liam Taylor and Ava Kelly) were at IASA Space Center waiting for their orders, Ben was still sleeping in his childhood home, not because he was lazy, but because he was a heavy sleeper who required an alarm to wake up. His cell phone would've done the trick, if its battery wasn't dead, that is.

"It's only at 10% battery, I'm sure it'll hold out until tomorrow," was what he told himself the previous night before he went to bed. Little did he realize just how quickly the battery drained that night, especially with the alarm feature playing in the background. Because of this, he had to rely on his body's internal clock to tell him it was time to get up. When he opened his eyes, he took a quick look at his watch to see that it was 9:30. Seeing this caused him to sit up in his bed in horror.

"Oh, shoot!" he exclaimed, "The mission briefing starts in fifteen minutes." Ben had set his alarm to 8:30 to give himself enough time to get ready. Now he would need to move at lightning speed to even have a chance to be there on time.

"Okay, don't panic, Ben," he told himself as he got dressed, "Panicking just makes things worse. Just work with the time you have and hope that everything will work out for the best."

After giving himself this little pep talk, Ben hurriedly went downstairs to get a quick breakfast (although coffee could do him wonders as well, but due to the time crunch he was experiencing right now that was something of a secondary goal) before he took off.

As Ben was chowing down on his impromptu breakfast of a few granola bars while he was waiting for the coffee maker to brew him some coffee, he heard a voice come from behind him that said, "Well hello there, Mr. White Rabbit, what's the hurry? You late for a very important date?"

Ben couldn't help but smile (though it looked more like a sneer) at this painfully obvious reference. "Well, good morning to you too, Dad." he replied playfully after turning his head over his left shoulder to address his father, who was indeed the source of the voice, "And yes, I'm in a hurry because I overslept, and I'm gonna be late for my mission briefing at IASA unless I get outta here as fast as possible."

"I see," said Mr. Martin before setting his newspaper and reading glasses down and putting his hand under his chin. "Your first mission for IASA," he mused, "You went from fixing and cleaning rockets to flying them through the stars. That must be exciting."

"I suppose it is," replied Ben unenthusiastically.

Now don't get me wrong, Ben was excited. It was just hard to feel that way because he was running behind, as that excitement wouldn't really matter if it turned out that everyone was starting without him.

He turned his attention back to the coffee maker which was surely taking its sweet time brewing a pot of coffee (at least from Ben's perspective, it was), "Now come on, you stupid thing, _move it_! Can you go any slower?!"

"Yelling at it is not gonna make it go any faster, Ben." said Mr. Martin calmly.

Ben sighed in frustration. "You know what? Forget the coffee," he muttered under his breath, "I'm sure the center will probably have some there. I'm just gonna go."

He left the kitchen and speed walked over to the front door. Holding it open, he turned around and said, "See you later, Dad!"

"Bye, Ben!" Mr. Martin called after him, "And I hope you know that I'm very proud of you!"

"Thanks, Dad!"

And with that, Ben rushed out the door to his car to embark on the drive over to IASA Space Center, hoping that by some miracle, he would make it there on time.


	3. Chapter 2: Brief Briefings & Ship Scares

By the time Ben parked his car at IASA Space Center's parking lot, it was a quarter past ten, which was later than he would've liked. The fact that he got stuck in traffic along the way really didn't help much, and really made him mentally kick himself for thinking that getting coffee in a time crunch was a good idea. He found it pretty ironic that a beverage that was supposed to give him a little pep in his step was the thing that slowed him down.

Ben approached the building, took a deep breath, and said, "Well, there's no turning back now, it's time to go in and face whatever consequences await me."He walked into the building to find that it was eerily silent. This could only mean two things, either he was late, or, as his optimistic side wanted to think, the staff were running behind schedule themselves and they haven't started yet.

"Ah, Benjamin, there you are," came a male voice with a British accent, "You're late!"

_I figured as much, _Ben thought before he turned to his right to address the speaker, his supervisor (and closest thing he had to a boss) Charles Robinson. Charles had always been something of a mentor figure to Ben. In fact, out of all four of the new recruits that he took under his wing, Ben was probably his favorite, as his ability to owe up to his mistakes was a character trait that Charles found very admirable (mostly because he hasn't seen it too often in all his years of being a supervisor.)

"There better be a good explanation for why you're late, Benjamin," Charles continued, arms crossed over his chest.

"There is, sir, there is." Ben replied. He then proceeded to tell Charles everything that happened that morning, when he finished, he bowed his head in shame and let out an apology without making eye contact.

"Hmm..." was all Charles could say as he stroked his goatee in thought. After a moment of silence, he said, "Very well, Benjamin, I'll let you off with a warning, this time." Ben's expression lit up at this. "But next time, if your phone's battery runs low and you plan to use it as an alarm, charge it for goodness sake! Don't just assume that it will hold out until the next morning. Understand?"

"Yes, sir!" replied Ben with a salute, "And thank you, sir!"

"My pleasure, Benjamin," said Charles, "Now, if you will follow me down to the meeting room, we'll get you started."

"Sure thing!" said Ben before he walked down the hallway behind Charles.

"Wait, Ben hasn't taken off yet?" asked Zoe Creed ,an Australian physics student who was part of the original Daedalus-7 mission, "I smell an interview," she added in a sing-songy tone of voice.

"I'm afraid that's going to have to wait, Miss Creed, we're running behind schedule at this point," said Charles, which caused Zoe to nearly let out a native curse word out of disappointment but she stopped herself.

"Well, actually," the blue-haired student said thoughtfully, "I suppose you and your crew mates can tell me all about it when you get back. What do you say, Ben? Deal?" She extended her arm over to Ben to shake her hand.

"Deal." Ben replied, giving her a firm handshake. With that, Zoe took her laptop and left the room.

"Glad to see that everyone's on the same page," said Charles, "Now, without further ado, onto business. Mrs. Wagner, as IASA's esteemed mission planner, would you be so kind as to fill Benjamin in on his assignment?"

"Certainly," said Miriam Wagner, "Now, Ben, for the sake of time I'll cut right to the chase. We have just received word from Schiaparelli Mining Group on Mars that they have taken four strange creatures into custody. These creatures that I speak of appear to be two foxes, one of which has unusual blue fur, a falcon, despite its coloration, and a frog, if these animals could walk on two legs, wear clothes and talk. No one knows where they came from, or if they are friends or foes towards us humans. The only answer we got out of them was that they came from this place called the Lylat system. Since the time they've been taken into custody, our scientists here have been hard at work to track down this location, and as luck would have it, have managed to find it.

"Your mission is to pick these creatures up from Mars, and escort them back to where they came from using the coordinates we've programmed on the ship's navigational system. Sounds simple enough, right?" Ben nodded.

"Good," said Miriam, "The lander is out back waiting to take you to the ship that's currently in orbit as we speak. So put on your space suit and go right in. Good luck, Ben."

The other five staff members (four scientists as well as Charles) in the room followed Miriam's example and wished Ben good luck in unison. Alessandra Iacovelli, IASA's head engineer from Italy (who was also present in the room), simply told Ben, "May God protect and guide you on your journey. You'll be in my prayers."

"Thank you," said Ben with a nod, "And thank you, everyone, for your well wishes. Well, no more time to lose, space awaits!" He left the room as he said the last two words with a fist in the air, which caused everyone in the room to either applaud or shout words of approval like "You got this!" and "Do us proud!" and even a "That's my boy!" (from Charles) at him.

After slipping on his space suit over his regular clothes, Ben walked over to the lander, breathing in the hot and humid Houston air for the last time as he did so. After climbing inside, he pressed the button that initiated a countdown to launch. While the countdown was happening, he grabbed the control stick, took a deep breath, and said with determination, "Alright, let's do this!" By the time he finished that sentence, the lander blasted off and the sky turned from blue to black in a matter of seconds.

_Onboard the ISS Titania_

While Liam and Ava were killing time playing Mario Party 10 on Liam's Wii U waiting for Ben to arrive, Jacob was sitting on the couch in the ship's lounge with his arms and legs crossed, staring into space (no pun intended) as he was tapping his foot in the air impatiently. "Ugh, can we get going already?!" he complained, "First time we actually get some action, and I'm just sitting here bored out of my skull."

"Patience, young Padawan," said Liam playfully, which caused Jacob to roll his eyes, "Besides Jake, you're merely choosing to be bored."

"Liam's right," Ava chimed in, "If you're that bored, why don't you join us? Our game's almost over, and if you keep yourself busy, Ben will be here before you know it."

"It's because of him that we aren't already leaving Mars by now," Jacob said bitterly, "If I were in charge, we would've took off an hour ago and left that slowpoke on Earth."

"Now Jacob, don't be like that," Ava scolded, "We're all as antsy to get going as you are, but you don't see Liam and I sulking around saying 'Where's Ben? Why is Ben not here yet? If I were in charge, blah blah blah' every 5 minutes, we're actually keeping ourselves busy. So either join us, find another way to keep yourself entertained, or be quiet and stop complaining. The choice is yours. Make it a good one."

After Ava was done with her little rant, Jacob sighed. "Fine," he said, "give me a controller."

"That's the spirit, Jake." said Liam, before he handed Jacob a Wii remote.

After the three crew members finished their game, and high fives were distributed for a game well played, Liam looked out the window with a hint of concern and said, "Uh, guys, is it just me or is Earth getting smaller?" Jacob and Ava followed his gaze and saw it too, Jacob with a look of relief and Ava with a look of worry. The ship was moving, but how? Did someone hijack the ship? Or...

They decided to make their way down the hall to the cockpit and find out what's going on. Once they got there, they saw a young man with short brown hair wearing a blue denim jacket and dark gray cargo pants standing behind the navigation panel. Something about him seemed familiar to them. Could it be?

"Ben?" asked Ava. The young man turned to face them, as if he knew that voice.

"Sup, guys? Did you really think I'd want to miss this for the world?" he said with a smile. Judging by his voice (and the fact that he wasn't being hostile to them, like threatening to shoot them to eliminate any witnesses or something of that nature), yep, it was Ben all right. Ava punched him in the arm.

"Ow!" Ben recoiled in pain.

"Don't scare us like that, Ben!" cried Ava, "For all we knew, someone could've been hijacking the ship!"

"I was gonna come by and greet you once I put the ship on course, but I guess I don't need to do that now," said Ben, "But anyway, we got ourselves a job to do." He dramatically pointed out the cockpit window at the black void of space as he exclaimed, "To Mars!"


End file.
